Rob Reich and Mohit Mookim write in “Wired” about the efforts by Bill Gates, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Chinese billionaire Jack Ma to step in and do what the federal government has failed to do in responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
They warn:
Public health is a paradigmatic public good. We should never be dependent on the whims of wealthy donors—as philanthropy is increasingly dominated by the wealthy—for our collective health and well-being.
That would be a betrayal of democracy. Rather than democratic processes determining our collective needs and how to address them, the wealthy would decide for us. We wanted rule by the many; we may get rule by the rich.
The coronavirus pandemic presents us with an immediate need for a response and it reminds us of the importance to invest so that we avoid preventable disasters in the future. At the moment, it’s all hands on deck for the emergency. But this is not what big philanthropy is built for. Or what it can sustain. The richest country in the world must step up to fund public health rather than relying on the richest people in the world to do it piecemeal.
Rob Reich is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and author of Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better. He is the faculty codirector of The Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, which has received grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Mohit Mookim is a researcher at the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University.
Curiously, the co-author Rob Reich Of the article leads an organization funded by the Gates Foundation. Will Bill Gates listen to him?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We may get file by the rich”?
May?
What’s Citizens United?
What’s Common Core?
What was the multi-trillion dollar bailout banks and corporations got in 2008?
What was the multi-trillion dollar bailout corporations just got?
Where have these guys been living? Under a log in the forest?
Rule — not file
Also hard to believe that Reich and Mookim are not familiar with the findings of Gilens and Page.
I hope there’s energetic oversight of the emergency federal funding that is supposed to go to schools.
The Trump Administration are anti-public school. I hope some of the money gets to public school students, without being siphoned off for their ideological privatization projects.
I don’t have any faith at all that any of these people work on behalf of students in public schools. I hope we’re not paying for an ed reform slush fund.
The money will go to the tech industry.
Reading the ed reform echo chamber in this crisis is really something.
Here’s another ed reform lobbying group using the crisis to promote charter schools:
https://50can.org/blog/the-new-reality-roundup-week-3/
Public school students don’t exist in this world. It’s 24/7 charter and voucher promotion no matter what is actually happening in the outside world.
100% negative scolding to public schools, 100% gushing praise for charter schools.
Oh, well. At least they’re consistent! Completely useless to 90% of kids in the country, but ideologically consistent!
Libertarians hate the common good. They say that instead of Medicare, Medicaid or the ACA you should depend on charity or the ever popular, “TOUGH LUCK, SUCKER, DIE ALREADY!” The libertarians say you should have saved more, you should have studied harder and gotten a better job with good insurance, why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare, it’s socialism. It really is a miracle that we have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and even the pathetic ACA, given the never-ending efforts of the corporate elites to destroy, undermine and decimate these essential programs.
The official libertarian public comment is, “left to die like a feral dog in the gutter”.
It seems to me that Gates et al are blind to their own (actual) place in the world. That is, as a structural issue, on principle, I don’t think a so-called philanthropist, who has power over as much capital as someone like Gates does, actually CAN help without, at the same time, usurping the democracy/republic we all live in.
It’s like Trump in some regard: You cannot BE a king and also embrace the principles of democratic/republican government . . . only on a PRETENSE of political equality can equality SEEM to occur.
Nor can we claim that the entire system is based on the principles of intelligence and excellence when they are actually built on a structure that is fundamentally tribal–as are kingship and philanthropy.
That being said, in the face of the virus, we can recognize in China and North Korea the inherent value of top-down political power which, unlike those countries, is reserved in mature democracies for crisis situations (Roosevelt understood this distinction, it seems). Exempt the notion of “mature,” however, and you have Trumpism on its way to Fascism. CBK
Gates’ name has been all over the NIH site for some time.
The Stanford Social Innovation Review publication is proof that Stanford is a think tank with students. A university is something different.
Medical research period. Milken used it to rehabilitate himself after prison and he continues to use it to skew research and shield himself for criticism on other issues like K-12. When I was in Seattle last year visiting The Hutch, I noticed a newsletter touting millions that had been given by Bezos and his estranged wife. John Arnold purchased one of the up-and-coming voices in cancer research policy who is based at the Oregon Health Sciences University. Don’t get me started on the Koch brothers and the idiot whose name escapes me who founded Cancer Treatment Centers of America (wretch), who funds research to get tax breaks and attack the Affordable Care Act.
good points, Greg
If it were up to me, this would be the one issue we’d rally around because it impacts every part of our society. It’s also the hardest argument to make to people who don’t pay attention. I’ve made a point of responding to any remark, written or spoken, directed in my vicinity about how wonderful and wise Bill Gates and other billionaires are. Usually they look at me like you do at your right wing relatives at Thanksgiving.
Gates’ PR is well funded and effective. I have the same experience you do.
Trump giving Limbaugh the same Medal of Freedom that Gates got, helps take Bill down a notch.
Rob Reich spin?
“In 2018, Gates met with Trump …to bolster the U.S. pandemic response infrastructure.”
We’ll never know what actually happened at the meeting. Trump’s lies are legion and Gates’ spokesperson in the Epstein case didn’t inspire confidence in his veracity.
As regular readers of this blog will know, I am not exactly a big fan of Mr. Gates. However, I’m pretty sure that he would agree with this. He has long called for governmental preparedness for these inevitable pandemics. I’ll fault him where he deserves it (for funding the Common Coring of U.S. education,f or example). But not here. I’m pretty sure he would agree with the thesis of this article.
Gates lives in the state with the most regressive tax system in the country.- no state income tax.
His foundation’s money is exempted from taxes. Government preparedness requires money.
Agreed. And he has said this too, on numerous occasions, as has his buddy Warren Buffet. Both have said that the tax system should be more steeply progressive. Could he be doing more to make that happen? Absolutely.
Washington State has no personal income tax and no corporate tax.
What a hypocrite. You can’t simultaneously call for “government preparedness” and then avoid taxes on your billions that would pay for that preparedness. It’s all theater, same as Cuomo making a spectacle over yelling at Trump while at the same time Cuomo himself has been cutting funding for hospitals and even now is cutting Medicaid even though it will cost the state of New York federal Medicaid funds.
Listening to these people is toxic. They’re all stuffed full of pretty words, but watch what they actually do.
Gates built toilets all over India. Very important. Great. He cozied up to Modi. Troubling. Did he consider this a necessary evil? I don’t know. I’m definitely of the there should be no billionaires camp. But I’m not going to get into the fatwa business. He builds toilets in India. That’s a good thing. Give him his due. Criticize what calls for criticism.
Bob . . . well-said about Gates, . . . even though there are lots of “howevers” surrounding the argument.
Besides my note above, one of the deeper problems (it seems to me from having read Gates’ stuff for a long time) is that he equates the problems of physical medicine with the much-fuller concerns that prevail in the education of persons. CBK
Well observed, CBK, as always.
Bob, you hypo…, wait, I meant, good points all! I think the key words I’d use are discerning, pragmatic, and committed. It is possible to be all three and not ideological. This crisis has given us so many examples.
If I were in Washington, I’d probably vote for Inslee over most other candidates, and if there were one I liked better, I’d support them and then Inslee if he were the candidate. But I’d still be a thorn in his side on Gates, state taxes, something about the slow drivers in the left lane, and education issues. As much as Cuomo grates, there is no question he has been great lately. I’ll support him there, I might even vote for him, but I’d certainly be there to yell in his face about how wrong he has been so many times and what he should do. Here in Ohio, I don’t support DeWine at all, but he gets thumbs up for bringing in Amy Acton and doing a very good job of, gasp!, governing—as a Republican!
Don’t be afraid to point out the good, but don’t use it as a reason to obscure the bad.
GregB, I was in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor. I disagreed (and disagree) with him about almost everything. But he was a decent governor. Obamacare is Romneycare. It is the system that Romney devised for Massachusetts in an attempt to deal with the problem of uninsured people (a system that, sadly, he later disowned when he was running for president). Romney and I couldn’t be further apart. I detested Romneycare/Obamacare as a way of prolonging the reign of the U.S. healthcare RICOs. But it’s better than nothing. I’m a Socialist. Romney is as Capitalist as they come. But Romney was pragmatic. He was willing to work across the aisle. He has what I consider to be crazy beliefs about lots of matters. But he is, I think, fundamentally a decent (though confused) man. And next to Trump, he looks like a saint and a genius.
If Gates actually believed that big philanthropy undermined democracy, he would not use his money to influence — indeed leverage — public policy and public opinion the way he does.
But he doesn’t believe it so he does use his money that way.
His views on public health seem to be more reasonable than those on education, but I think that is actually a separate issue from the main one under discussion: that billionaires are undermining democrac with their philanthropy.
I don’t see that Gates gets that at all — or if he does understand it, he doesn’t care.
I emphatically agree that we should not be dependent on charity to finance public goods. I found myself, a couple years ago, organizing a magazine sales drive to fund creating a stage for a theater in my high school.
SomeDAM My guess is that Gates never studied political philosophy or history in the fields either. . . though apparently he does do a lot of reading–suggesting, again, that it matters less THAT than WHAT. CBK
The “About Us” tab at Rob Reich’s center shows 50 photos of individuals, maybe one or two black people among them? The demographics of ethics in American society
Linda about Rob Reich’s photos. Thank you for providing us with a fine example of cherry-picking and, from the field of logic, “hasty generalization.” CBK
An internet search of biggest ethical issues in America would identify race as one? Much has been researched, “white America lives a largely segregated life”. Demographic representation is essential for an informed discussion about ethics and race?
The Center’s reason for existence relates to ethics. It is funded by Gates. A major Gates’ initiative is school improvement, especially outcomes for minority students, many of whom are poor and black.
It is disappointing when policy think tank staff include none or few of those demographic constituencies that it purports to aid. Some may suggest it appears as colonialism.
In 2019, when the NYT posted, “187 men will decide the question, ‘Will women have a bigger role in the Catholic Church’ “, some may have said they were cherry picking.
Linda I’m sorry to say that responding to your notes has become a waste of time. I can only hope that others here will read your notes with a critical attitude . . . one that is absent in the writing of them. CBK
I hope that we shall learn the terrible lessons of this pandemic–that we have to pay attention to the scientists. But I’m doubtful.
Will we learn, for example, that this virus originated in a wet market for wild animals used as food? Will we learn that those animals caught this from bats? Will we learn that the bats and those wild animals used to be isolated in remote wild places but that human habitation has encroached upon those and climate change has reduced the number of roosting places and food sources that bats have, driving them into closer proximity to humans? Will we learn that factory farms (confined animal feeding operations) are relatively new, that 80 percent of the antibiotics we produce are now given to animals in these, that eating meat from those farms creates antibiotic resistance, that those farms are breeding grounds for diseases that cross over to humans?
Somehow I don’t think that any number of U.S. deaths will get these things through the thick heads of the likes of Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, etc.
But we must be more vocal. We must INSIST that such people learn the lessons of this pandemic.
“This guy is great. I’m not even kidding.”
My 13 year old upon reading this post. Good job. Impressing a young teen is pretty hard.
Thanks, RT. And love to you and your little poet!
We the people would be better off if billionaires paid their fair share of taxes instead of allowing them to use so-called philanthropy as a tax avoidance strategy. A minimized federal government is less able to respond to a crisis. Billionaire dollars often come with string attached, or their largesse is an LLC designed to yield them yet another stream of revenue.
Agreed
Drug companies often receive lots of public money for R&D of new drugs. When the drug is approved, the private company gets the patent for a certain number of years. During this time they charge the public an outrageous amount for their drug. The public helps fund the private company’s venture. Then the public gets gets ripped off by the high price of the drug. Even if people have insurance, they are paying more in insurance to cover the cost of the new drug, or they may denied access to the drug by the insurance company. The public keeps losing in capitalism.
yes: billionaires are not billionaires because they give anything away
Well, Bill Gates listened to David Coleman. I’m not sure if he has listened to anyone else since Coleman sold Gates his pedestrian Moon-Mars test-until-you-drop bridge for public education in the U.S.
Once upon a time, if memory serves, this would have gone without saying.
Or am I romanticizing the past? Either way, let’s tax these people and use public infrastructure like land grant universities, the CDC, the NIH, etc., to do this kind of work. Then rich egomaniacs and megalomaniacs like Bill Gates won’t be able to do things like, say, screw up public education.
Just sayin’, you know?
A supreme bummer about John Prine. Hope everyone here is safe and healthy.
Gates gave money to the organizations that represent land grant colleges and public universities and they signed onto the Gates’ Frontier Set, a program that creates a collaboration on delivery and curriculum with the Gates Foundation. Two state university systems are part of Frontier Set.
The think tank of Google’s Eric Schmidt, New America, recommended that state higher ed funding should be shared by public universities and private schools (i.e. legacy admission schools).
I too fear the untimely departure of Prine, whom I consider to be the quintessence of modern expression. It is too soon to watch his ashes float down the Green River.
Prine? Oh Lord no!!!!
Mark, see my note, below.
Healthy, but “still crazy after all these years!”
Not all of us can be “stable genius(es)!”
While it is true that southern states should have attempted to educate their African American citizens, I think that we should not fault Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington. Their efforts that resulted in building nearly 5,000 schools across 15 states dedicated to K-12 education of African American students.
That is a surprisingly anodyne statement. The post Civil War states did not want to educate their black citizens. They spent pennies on their “education.” Rosenwald did pay for black schools. Booker T. Washington encouraged education, especially vocational education. Surely you are aware of the great debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois about the best education for black students. Without Rosenwald and Washington, there would have been next to no education for black students in the south. White southerners did not want to spend anything to educate them.
I am glad that we agree that the government would not have made any attempt to solve this “public problem” and the ONLY way it was going to be addressed was through efforts by philanthropists like Julius Rosenwald.
Next up would perhaps be Carnegie libraries. As a self educated man, Andrew Carnegie was a great believer in libraries. My town has a Carnegie library, perhaps many other readers also have Carnegie libraries in their towns. Do folks think that this might be another “public problem” that governments refused to address but private philanthropy helped to improve?
I have great respect for the Carnegie libraries. But remember that Carnegie did not tell librarians what books to order and which to exclude.
Today’s philanthropists–the big ones–fund projects that fit their preferences. They do not accept uninvited proposals.
If Bill Gates wants to push Common Core, he spends hundreds of millions to get everyone else on board. With what results?
Philanthropy has changed. Up until 2000 or so, the big philanthropies accepted outside ideas; now they fund only their own or create new organizations to do what they want.
I just read a statement from John Prine’s wife saying that he is recovering OK. So freaking glad to hear this!!!
So happy to hear that, Bob! Living in Chicago & ‘burbs, saw Prine way back when at the folk clubs here (he’s from Maywood, IL). A phenomenal musician, writer & storyteller, one like no other. He broke the mold. The last I’d read was in this morning’s early edition Chicago Sun-Times, & it didn’t look good. He’s had lung & many other health problems for years, but is a tough guy who’s come through (he is 73). In our thoughts & prayers.
Thanks for the video, Greg B.!
Yes, Greg, thank you. I hadn’t seen it. I love this guy Prine. I’ve been playing and singing his music for decades. An astonishing storyteller!!!
Oh, that’s great news, Bob. Thanks for posting it.
I wasn’t too worried if he didn’t make it, but I hope we get some songs out of this deal!
Oh, & one of the last times Prine appeared at the Chicago Theatre (an overpriced downtown venue, where they’ll literally seat you behind a post, which is what happened when my husband & I were fortunate enough to see Robin Williams {we were able to move to some empty seats not behind a post}), I was outside of our ABC affiliate which was having a candidates forum, protesting the TPP, across the street from the theatre, where his name was on the marquee, wishing I could be attending the concert (although, as I said, I despise the venue).
He’d have approved of our protest & leafletting, though…
I just read a fascinating theory being advanced by some modelers of the coronavirus spread that we are in the second, more severe, wave of infections. According to this theory, it has been out there in the population and widespread since January, but symptoms were almost always mild, and their afflictions were taken for simple colds. If this theory is true, it’s very good news. It means that there are lots of folks out there in the population with antibodies to the virus. It will take a lot of testing for those antibodies to determine whether that’s so. And there’s some question about whether that will be done on the necessary scale quickly enough. But this would be a good thing to know.
Back about that time, my neighbors returned from a trip to Puerto Rico. They were all very, very sick with colds for several weeks–extremely so. At the time, I was spending almost al my time at home and not coming into contact with many people, but I did come into contact with them, and sure enough, I came down with a cold. However, it was the weirdest cold I’ve ever had. I had a slight fever and a scratchy throat and very little sense of smell. And I took to bed and slept almost around the clock for three days. During that time, I was probably awake, at most, about four hours a day. Then I was fine.
I’m wondering whether I’ve already had this thing. Only a test for antibodies would tell for sure.
But those tests seem to be months into the future. I read a few days ago that the test for antibodies was just created and it could take a long time to get enough out there to find out who is safe already to return to the old norma.
Methodist Hospital in Houston is doing an antibody trial ASAP.
I freaking LOVE the new mayor of Tampa. A real leader. She has set up a tent city for our homeless, with showers and mattresses and three meals a day. So they can shelter in place.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/03/29/tampa-sets-up-tent-city-so-homeless-can-shelter-in-place/
Billionaires should stick to causing all our problems instead of trying to solve them.
But, that is exactly what those billionaires are doing. It doesn’t matter what words they use to describe what they are doing, in the end, they are creating all kinds of problems.
The Bill Gates Corral
Gates are at their best
When problems are in mind
Especially the quest
To keep us in a bind
The article says : “The coronavirus pandemic presents us with an immediate need for a response and it reminds us of the importance to invest so that we avoid preventable disasters in the future. At the moment, it’s all hands on deck for the emergency. But this is not what big philanthropy is built for. Or what it can sustain. The richest country in the world must step up to fund public health rather than relying on the richest people in the world to do it piecemeal.” Here is the link https://oltnews.com/apple-google-and-microsoft-fail-american-students-during-covid-19-crisis-fast-company
Less than 30 minutes ago Trump had another press briefing. He invited CEOs of about ten corporations to describe their stepped up production of PPE and other critical tools for addressing the pandemic. The My Pillow CEO described his logistic contributions, then launched into a “Pray-to-God” solution to the problem with mighty praise for Trump. Other CEOs made PR pitches for their companies, all with praise for Trump and Pence. Most CEOs described what they were producing, how many units of this or that, and expected delivery times for these.
Trump’s briefing was a planned to show that government is not the solution to a problem at this scale. At best it should remove regulations, enlist the private sector, and authorize a limited role for the military in providing resources. The press briefing was also staged to perpetuate his attacks on the press and dispute the actual needs of medical personnel pleading for help and elected officials requesting help on behalf of their constituents.
On balance then, the approach of this administration to this crisis is to enlist private industry and to reward them in public for that effort, especially if they pay homage to the dear President and dear Vice President for extraordinary leadership—as each CEO did.
At no time did Trump or and CEOs speak of the dollar value of their efforts, who was footing the bill, what profits might be made. The CEOs were type-cast as heroic figures, and not different from philanthropists. If corporations are perceived as philanthropists and the instruments of choice for addressing any crisis, then philanthropies built on corporate wealth have no obligation to act on the crisis.
Trump’s crisis management has been an inept version of a standard Republican ideology valorizing private solutions to big problems. He has been eager (and ham-handed) is portraying government as the problem at the same time he wants full credit for being a perfect leader.
Meanwhile it is instructive to remember that philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, who live in greater Seattle, are also venture capitalists. Press from the B&MG Foundation says that it annually puts about $300 million into projects and activities of benefit to the Seattle-King County region. (In 2018, this region had an estimated population of 744,955).
So, after all of the hoopla about who is reposnsible for what, with not much attention to costs and profits, we learn on March 27, 2020 that health care workers in greater Seattle, especially in nursing homes, were still scrambling for PPE, personal protective equipment. Some were making masks on sewing machines at home, from hospital drapery and other sources. https://www.kuow.org/stories/as-supplies-dwindle-one-doctor-resorts-to-creative-ways-to-hustle-masks
“Philanthropists” interested in significant societal problems would have focused on the financial sector’s 2% drag on GDP. If Gates had taken on that sector, his opponents would have been formidable. Main Street was an easier mark.
Pillow Talk
I am the inventor
Of pillow for your head
Shouldn’t be dissent here
With anything I’ve said
Jumping off a precipice
Or jumping into lake
From likes of me, advice like this
Is something you should take